


V is for Vashoth

by OtakuElf



Series: YADAA (Yet Another Dragon Age Alphabet) [22]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Cultural Differences, Dalish Elves, F/M, Gen, Kossith, Mages, Mercenaries, Qunari, Tal-Vashoth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 00:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5847388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuElf/pseuds/OtakuElf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the war against the Qunari, how do you judge who your allies are?</p>
            </blockquote>





	V is for Vashoth

Cecil, mage and healer for Ser Holling’s brigade in the Alliance of Thedas against the Qunari, watched his templar-trained partner, Bradbury, playing Diamondback with Clive. Clive had another name at one time. He had elected this new name as more in keeping with his chosen profession as a mercenary. Clive also had horns, gray skin, and was a head taller than six foot, four-inch tall Cecil, which meant he was three heads taller than Bradbury. Clive was kossith, "Vashoth", as he put it, "not Tal Vashoth, and definitely not Qunari."

The giant swords-man, dressed in a gold frogged, scarlet tunic and black breeches, muscular arms bare as he dealt the worn cards, sat cross-legged on his brightly striped cloak. Cecil had seen him single-handedly upend a farm cart with those massive arms, and cleave opponents in half with a variety of weapons - some of which did not have an edge. A sword bigger than Bradbury leant against the pole in the center of the tent. Bianca Bradbury’s own long sword and shield lay below. Clive, Bradbury, and Cecil voluntarily shared quarters, and had for many long nights during the Qunari War. 

Clive claimed to be vashoth, “grey”, already - and therefore refused to wear that colour for any amount of money. Which was surprising, as Clive really did like money. There were, he said, so many things one could do with it. Clive did not rebel against the Qun. He refused to acknowledge it as having anything to do with him whatsoever. “It’s a philosophy, not a belief system,” he’d point out to anyone who would listen. “One that I have never been forced to ascribe to,” in his Fereldan accent. Lately, as they saw the conditions that those who rebelled against the Qun were kept under, he’d taken to adding, “For which I am heartily thankful.”

Clive didn’t have any religious affiliation, though he did say (from time to time) that he was considering worshipping The Stone, if for no other reason than it would really piss off any Qunari they met. “After all,” he grinned at Cecil and Bradbury, “If I’m going to follow any construct, it should be one that serves a purpose, right?”

“A construct?” Cecil - who was a devout Andrastian - asked the giant uncertainly.

“Religion. Faith. There are gods that the kossith worship, but not lately. They don’t do anything for you, so what’s the point? Like Treeface over there.” The kossith pointed over to their fourth, a Dalish mercenary whose valleslin represented a tree’s branches spread over the female’s face. Clive was not the only person who called her by a name other than “Anneslin” which was her given name. Anneslin called Clive “goat head”, and it was all mostly amiable.

“Anneslin,” Cecil was always careful to call people by their actual names, “follows the Dalish pantheon.”

Anneslin raised her fine, brown eyebrows at them, but said nothing, concentrating on her cards. She didn’t speak much to anyone. Her curved knives were hidden in the red woollen bedroll by her side.

“Exactly! Just my point. What do they know about these gods of theirs? Other than that they don’t actually do anything?” Clive was waving his gigantic mug around for emphasis. When some of the ale sloshed out he brought the wooden vessel to his lips and took a long pull. “Half of the Dalish are city elves who’ve joined after spending the beginning of their lives as Andrastians. They try very hard to follow something they can’t possibly believe in.”

Cecil was drinking tea, which he preferred. After a lukewarm mouthful that told him pointedly that he’d let it sit too long he grimaced and said, “Are you saying they’re all still Andrastian?”

Clive laughed that bellowing big guffaw he had before giving the negative, “No, they didn’t believe in Andraste, or they’d not have given her up so quickly, would they?”

“I suppose not,” Cecil’s deep voice was thoughtful. He found himself hoping that his own faith was never tested like that. What would he say if offered the chance to convert or die? After all, he did believe in the Maker. He did read and sing the chant whenever possible.

“So what does the Maker do for you?” Clive asked the mage as he laid down his winning hand.

“What do you mean? He created the world. He’s the Maker,” Cecil had an answer for that.

“Yes,” Clive asked in a broad way that meant he was striving for an enormous amount of patience, “But what has he done for you lately? Aside from sending the blight?”

“The Maker didn’t send the blight. That was just a consequence of man’s stupidity,” protested Cecil.

“Clive,” Bradbury said loudly, “Stop baiting Cecil. He believes what he believes, and your arguments are not going to change him. And it’s still your deal.”

“He’s such an easy target though,” sighed Clive dramatically.

Cecil blew a huff out of his lips. “I’m off to find some hot tea. Do you want anything?”

“An end to war, with us winning,” Clive suggested.

Bradbury gave them each a look in turn. “Check with the sentries and find out if they need anything while you’re at it.”

Grumbling, Cecil climbed through the tent flaps and went off in search of fresh tea. The quartermaster for the company had hot water in a kettle over the coals at the center of the encampment. “You’d think you could heat this yourself, young man,” she joked. Cecil was used to it. People didn’t actually understand how magic worked. They just assumed everyone could do everything with it, and all it took was a snap of the fingers. Cecil had tried to explain the different schools of magic to various people in the troop and had not gotten very far. 

Still, everyone was happy with his healing and with the spells he did have. Best not to ruin the mystery. 

It was a stinging cold night, dark skies above them filled with plenty of white stars and a few puffy clouds. The mage took mugs of hot tea, sweetened with honey, to each of the sentries out in the darkness. “Thanks, mate!” was the standard response. Cecil felt appreciated, if not understood.

When he got to the last sentry in the loop though, the man was looking out into the night. Waving a hand at the mage to come closer, Martin the Younger (as he was known, though there was not currently a ‘Martin the Older’) said quietly, “The night animals got quiet all of a sudden. Go and get the Sergeant, will you?”

Cecil had just turned around when Martin gave a loud cry and fell over, a Qunari javelin in his side. “Qunari,” Cecil screamed before dragging Martin behind a pile of wood and pulling open the pierced tunic. Cursing, the healer turned his attention to the wound, ignoring the swordsmen and shields tumbling out of the tents behind to meet the oncoming Qunari. 

The javelins were not all that sharp, and thank the Maker they were not barbed. Cecil concentrated on healing, pouring golden healing energy into the wound as he withdrew the javelin. Martin gasped under his hands, but did not fight him. A huge gray warrior, bare chested, but with the daubs of poisonous Qunari war paint, rounded the wood pile, a heavy two-handed sword raised above his head to deal with the mage threat. Cecil spared a moment to cause the dirt under the attacker’s feet to shift and turn to mud beneath them. It was unexpected, and even with a fighter’s skill at retaining balance under warlike conditions, the horned warrior slipped and skidded, falling hard against the stacked wood. Time enough for Bradbury to get to them, and take his head off, horns and all. Bastard, to attack a healer.

“You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” she shouted at Cecil, then, “How’s Martin?”

“He’ll be fine. Just needs to rest. What’s going on?” Cecil huddled behind the barrier of wood until he had gotten his breath back and could cast a force wall.

Bradbury held her shield in place, sword ready if more attackers came at them. “Tal Vashoth. Desperate and hungry. Still a bear to fight though.”

Tal Vashoth. Those who had left the Qun, who were no longer “of the Qun”, as Cecil had heard. “Shouldn’t they be helping us? I mean, to fight against the Qunari? What about ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend?’” Cecil never could understand the subtleties of Clive’s race.

“One would think,” Bradbury stood to meet a tall hornless giant, neatly parrying the two-handed sword and sliding her own up through his ribs.

Cecil took a deep breath and concentrated on a basic force spell. Bradbury knew him well enough that she moved with him as he lifted Martin, shielding them both from the battle, and began to move toward the rear. “Did you at least get to finish your game of Diamondback?” he asked his partner.

“It wasn’t going my way,” Bradbury opined, “So it wasn’t much of a loss to quit it for something else more exciting.”

Clive came roaring past them to take on one of the bare-chested, painted Kossith, their giant blades clanging as they came together, and screeching as the edges twisted past each other.

The sounds of battle surrounded the mage and his charge, with Bradbury getting her strong arm in to give a few blows. The Tal Vashoth, for all their size and strength, were starving and ill - no match for the well fed fighters of Hollings’ people. In spite of their hopeless fight, the grey-skinned bandits refused to surrender, and fought to their own deaths.

Picking his way along the neatly laid out rows of dead, plundered Tal Vashoth afterwards, Cecil found Clive seated cross-legged on the ground, back against the wood pile. Clive’s eyes were closed, his horned head resting back on the cut logs. “It is never going to end, is it?” Clive’s own deep rumble of a voice cut through the night air.

“You don’t think the Qunari will ever give up?” Cecil settled himself next to the grey giant. He didn’t ask Clive how he knew it was Cecil without opening his eyes.

“No. The Tal Vashoth don’t. And they quit the Qun long since. What if we do kill all of the Beresaad? The Arishok and all? There are all of those farmers and bakers. The Ben Hassrath. Whatever spies they’ve got hidden in our towns.” Eyes opened and Clive looked over at Cecil to ask, “What do you think the odds are that I’ll find a nice Vashoth woman to marry and settle down with? Somewhere in the wilds of Ferelden?”

Cecil took a deep breath of the steaming, honeyed mugs of tea in his hands before offering one to his friend. “About as good as mine of finding a goose-down mattress in the tent tonight. I will settle for my bedroll before too much longer.”

“Oh, well, if you’re willing to give up that easily,” Clive laughed as he took the tea and sipped appreciatively.

“Does it have to be a Vashoth woman?” Cecil asked before drinking his own tea.

Clive was silent in thought, “Does she have to be a she? Yes. Does she need to be Vashoth? Well, with that I guess I’m open to others. A big Anders’ girl maybe?”

Cecil hummed - he was not sure if it was in agreement, or because he had nothing to say to that.

Then Clive went on, “What do you think about Bradbury? Think she’d be open to a home and raising children?”

“No,” Cecil said shortly, before adding, “Not at all.”

Clive laughed at him, friendly, but not at all fooled.

“What’s so funny? Any tea for me, Cecil?” Bradbury joined them on the ground, examining the corpses nearby with an enviable detachment.

Cecil handed his own over - it was barely touched, he told himself. Clive made a hideous face at the mage. “Cecil was just telling me that my proposal for marriage would be unwelcome.”

“To Cecil? Maker, no!” Bradbury was laughing at him now too.

The mage looked away, toward the dead Kossith, but not seeing them.

“By the Stone, no!” said Clive, who was still, apparently, trying out oaths to the dwarven construct, “to you. You’re a bit scrawny, Bradbury, but you’d still make someone a good wife.”

“I can’t cook,” Bianca pointed out, “I can’t make clothing, or care for animals. Any man who expected me to lay down my sword to take up housekeeping would starve in quick order.”

“No reason for you to lay down your sword. It’s not the cooking or the cleaning or the housework that makes a partner,” Cecil muttered.

“Yah,” Clive agreed, “I don’t think I said anything about housework.”

“Hah,” Bradbury gave them a raised eyebrow, “You say that, but the one providing the offspring is the one who has to ensure all of that.”

Cecil argued, “Unless you married someone who took on caretaker responsibilities. There are all types of people. Just because you’re not inclined that way doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be able to marry. You know. If you should choose to do so.”

Then as an afterthought, he said, “Just not Clive.”

“Oh, thank you very much!” Clive grumbled.

“I suppose so,” Bradbury said thoughtfully.

“Hmmm,” Cecil rumbled beside her.

Clive avoided looking at either of them. He was trying very hard not to laugh. “Best get to our bedrolls then. We’ll be up early enough to take care of this lot.”

Anneslin was already in her corner asleep when they arrived, bundled up in her red wool. Cecil noticed that his Vashoth friend giving a long look back at the silent, cooling line of others of his kind before pulling the canvas flap of the tent closed. 

“Sleep well, Clive,” Cecil said. Looking over to where Bianca had crawled into her bedroll. “Sleep well, Bradbury.”

Tomorrow was also a day.


End file.
